"Why do you suppose they did that?"
"Because Slag Firestoke is a miserable old rust-pit, and he wants Jilian to marry somebody wealthy or famous."
"I don't suppose you are either of those?"
"No, I'm not. But I'll go back when I'm ready, and I'll go on my own terms, and Slag Firestoke can go to corrosion for all I care."
"But you're going to find the helmet first."
"I intend to try. Maybe it was just a dream, but I want to find out."
"Maybe the helmet will make you rich and famous," the kender suggested.
Still seething at the recent memory of betrayal and humiliation, Chane squinted and peered at the misted valley. The kender was right about one thing, he decided. The valley seemed to try to hide itself, as though it didn't want company. But to reach the mountains east of there he would have to cross it.
They had seen no further sign of the big cats. If the beasts lived in the valley, they had obviously gone home during the night. In the distance, beyond the mists, morning sun haloed the caps of tall peaks that jutted upward like lizards' teeth. At one point, somewhat to the north, there was a gap that might be a pass.
"Does your map say what's beyond those next mountains?" he asked.
"Another valley," the kender said. "It's called the Vale of Respite. And beyond it are more mountains. Some really big ones. According to one of the maps, the northern gate of Thorbardin is over there someplace. I've never seen that. Have you?"
"Not from outside," Chane admitted. He growled again, thinking about
Firestoke's "armsmen" – actually just a gang of toughs, the sort who were all too common in some of the warrens and even parts of some of the clan cities in the undermountain domain. Firestokel The old rustbucket had made
Chane believe that he was helping him, outfitting him for a journey, providing armed companions… and had betrayed him. What must Jilian think? Thinking of Jilian he became so melancholy that he went back to thinking about her father instead.
'Yes, by the Great Anvil!" he growled. 'Yes, I will go back, and maybe
I'll shove Slag Firestoke's pretensions right down his throat."
"Being rich and famous might help," Chess allowed. He shifted his pouch to a more comfortable position at his belt, gripped his hoopak, and scuffed an impatient foot. "Look at it, will youl I never saw a valley so reluctant to be seen."
Chane picked up his packs. "Maybe it's a spell."
"I don't think so," the kender said. "I heard magicians don't like to come here because it makes them itch or something. The hill dwarf told me that." He glanced at the fur-clad dwarf, then tipped his head to study
Chane critically. Clad entirely in black cat-fur, the only parts of the dwarf that were visible were the top half of his face swept-back whiskers nearly as dark as the cat fur covered everything below his nose – his hands, and his knees between kilt and boot-tops. Chess decided he looked like a dwarf in a black bunny suit.
Chane stepped to the edge of the ridge and looked down. Rough, fissured rock fell away in a vertical drop, and through the mists he thought he saw water below.
Wings beat the air, and a dark shadow flitted across the ledge. They looked up. A large bird, as black as midnight but with iridescent flashes where sunlight caught its sleek feathers, had swooped down from somewhere above and now rested on a gnarled snag just overhead. It preened itself, shifted its footing on the snag, and cocked its head to stare at them with one golden eye. "Go away," it said.
Chane blinked. "What?"
"It said, 'go away,' " the kender repeated. "I never heard a bird say
'go away' before, have you? For that matter, I've never heard a bird say a word of any kind except once, when a messenger bird in the service of some wizard got lost in a crosswind or something and landed on the flagstaff at
Hylo Village. It talked for five or ten minutes. Nobody knew what it was talking about, but half the folks in the village were invisible for several days afterward." He paused, remembering. "Lot of things got misplaced about then. Old Ferman Wanderweed never did find his front door
– "
"Will you be quiet?" Chane snapped. "This bird just talked to us."
"I know that. It said, 'go away.' I told you."
"But birds can't talk!"
"Generally not." Curiously, the kender raised his forked staff and poked at the bird. It glared at him, first with one eye and then with the other, and shifted its position on the snag. "Go away," it said again.
"Do you suppose that's all it knows how to say?" Chess wondered aloud.
"Just, 'go away'? If I were teaching a bird to talk, I think I'd come up with something better than -"
"Go away or keep the Way," the bird said.
"That's much better," Chess nodded.
"What does it mean by that?" Chane glared at the bird, which glared back with a malicious yellow eye.
"Go away or keep the Way," the bird squawked. "Go away or keep the Way!
Go away or keep the Way!" Having had its say then, the bird glared at them one more time, relieved itself on the snag, spread wide wings, and launched itself out over the valley.
They watched it shrink to a dot in the distance, then Chane settled his packs on sturdy shoulders and stepped to the edge of the cliff again.
"You're still going?" the kender asked.
"Of course I am. Why not?"
"You heard what that bird said."
"I don't take orders from birds. Are you coming?"
"Sure, but I bet there's an easier way down than where you're heading."
Turning away from the sheer ledge, the small creature started off, down the far slope, angling away from the ledge.
Chane frowned and called after him, "That isn't the way the bird went."
Chess glanced back. "So what?"
"The bird said, 'keep the Way.' Maybe we're supposed to follow it."
"I thought you didn't take orders from birds."
"I don't, but I'm open to suggestions when they lead in the direction I want to go."
"Well, I'll meet you in the valley, then," Chess said. "This looks like a nice, easy path around this way. A person could get hurt climbing down that cliff."
"Suit yourself." The dwarf shrugged, eased himself over the sheer ledge, and found handholds and acceptable, if precarious, holds for his feet. As a mountain dwarf, climbing was second nature to him, and he had little patience for detours.
The sheer face was almost vertical, but it was rough and broken, and
Chane could find purchase. As he lowered himself below the edge, he saw the kender strolling happily away, down the easy slope to the north.
It was eighty feet to the bottom of the rock, as nearly as Chane could judge. Slow going, but he kept at it, working his way down with the stubborn dexterity of his kind. Born in Thorbardin, largest kingdom of the mountain dwarves of Krynn – and maybe the only one, for all Chane knew – swarming over rock faces was as natural to him as delving caverns and tunnels. Dug from the bedrock of a mountain range, Thorbardin was more than a city. It was an entire complex of cities, all deep within the mountains. And it had many levels. In one way or another, Chane had been climbing rock all his life.
The dwarf was nearing the bottom when he heard shouts and scuffling above. A rain of pebbles pelted Chane. He looked up to see the kender flinging himself over the ledge, seeming to fly out into thin air for a moment before he twisted around, thrust his forked staff at the face of the cliff, wedged it into a crack, and swung from it. Above Chess a great black head with feral yellow eyes looked down. A big, padded paw with ranked claws extended and swatted downward, trying to reach him. The kender pulled himself hand over hand to the rock face, clung there, released his staff, and thrust it into another crack farther down. "The bird was right," he called. "I think I'll try it your way."